Envy cried out when their side hit the tree trunk so hard that the wood splintered.
Shit! Shitshitshitshitshit!
They scrambled to get back on their feet, their head spinning and their instincts screaming in horror.
How? How had Pride found them?
I should have known you would turn traitor, Pride soft voice echoed in the night and a sharp bolt made of cold shadows shot out of one of the gaps at the joints in Alphonse's possessed armor. It pierced Envy right beneath their shoulder blade and they shrieked in pain and fear. They tried to force themselves free but another shadow bit into their wrist, pinning the shapeshifting Homunculus to the ground. The red light of their Stone immediately began sizzling around the wounds but it was no use, Pride had them completely under his control. Always so self-centered and egotistical... Greed has rubbed off on you, Pride sneered as his disembodied eyes looked on from the slits in the armor suit and the shadowy tendrils that surrounded it.
Hey, Gluttony! Come here! Pride loudly barked an order and Envy heard the foliage in the forest rustle noisily, as if something heavy was struggling to make its way towards the two of them. Alphonse's suit of armor bent over Envy, the shadows roiling inside inspecting them critically. The movement looked jerky and unnatural, as if the puppeteer animating it was inexperienced and was yet to fully grasp how to do it properly. Just you wait, you treacherous little freak, Pride growled in their face, I'm gonna carve you up in little pieces and have Gluttony eat you. Let's see how you survive that.
"Pride?" Gluttony's voice was coming closer. "What's going on?"
Pride turned all his eyes towards the noise just as Gluttony was emerging from the forest. Just look who I found camping out with the Elrics and their filthy father, he boasted cruelly, dismissing Envy from his immediate attention for a second.
Pride had always placed himself above the rest of them. He was the firstborn. The most powerful one. The eldest one. Father's second-in-command. The rest of the Homunculi were nothing to him. Underestimating them came to Pride as naturally as breathing did for humans.
That had always been unpleasant and demeaning. Not that you should have expected anything less from the personification of hubris.
But this time it did them a favor. If not for the piercing agony, they might have grinned.
Gluttony stepped into the clearing and his small, beady eyes welling up with shock. "Lu..." He stuttered, "L-lust?"
His voice sounded so lost and hopeful that Envy briefly felt guilty for deceiving him like this.
What? Pride's eyes turned back to Envy... only to discover that they had taken the form of their dead sister. The glowing, malicious orbs widened in sudden realization when Envy met them with Lust's icy, amethyst gaze.
"Lust is back..." Gluttony's voice was quiet, as if he was talking to himself. Then he turned towards Pride. His round face was twisted in confusion and anger. "Why are you hurting Lust, Pride?" He stepped towards the possessed suit of armor, his body language fearful and determined all at once. "Stop hurting her, stop hurting Lust! She's back!"
Shut up, you fat moron! Pride hissed, That's n...
He didn't have time to finish. Envy transformed their free arm into a curved blade and hacked at the shadowy tendrils that kept them pinned to the muddy ground. Envy wasn't strong enough to actually hurt him, of course, but the trick was so unexpected that that Pride involuntarily stumbled back a step and released them for just a fraction of a second. Before he could gather his bearings, Envy was already frantically running towards Kanama with all their power, taking their usual appearance back.
GLUTTONY, YOU IDIOT! An indignant screech echoed into the night behind them.
It only made Envy run faster.
Damn it! God-fucking-damn it!
This was bad, really bad.
The Promised Day was creeping close and if Pride had his clutches on Alphonse already, it didn't bode well at all. Especially when – to Envy's knowledge – the other human sacrifices were unaccounted for.
They were running out of time. They had to get to Van Hohenheim, to warn him.
When the shadow claw slashed through the tendons beneath their left ankle, Envy shrieked in pain and crashed face-first into the ground. The damage was repaired almost instantaneously, but it was too late.
I'm going to make you scream for this, Envy, Pride's soft voice promised, closing in from behind. They turned to look back at the woods and saw Alphonse's suit striding purposefully towards their fallen form, Gluttony on his heels, looking chastised and confused.
"No, I don't think you will," another voice answered and Envy suddenly felt like crying in relief.
Hohenheim... Pride sounded taken aback as he stopped in his tracks.
Pride never sounded like that, not even when he spoke to Father. Gluttony just stared at the man, and for the first time in their existence, Envy did not hear him asking whether he was allowed to eat a newcomer.
Van Hohenheim was standing on the other side of the meadow, the lights of Kanama illuminating him from behind and washing against the overcast night sky. Hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, his long blonde hair slightly messy… he didn't look intimidated at all.
But behind his glasses his amber-colored eyes were staring at Pride hard, the look in them so severe that Envy realized that the mellow man they had traveled with was nothing but a mask.
"I thought you would have learned your lesson in Liore, Pride," Van Hohenheim stated and stepped towards the Homunculi. Gluttony whimpered and hesitantly moved to retreat towards the forest.
Now, now, Hohenheim, Pride had regained his composure and allowed his usual sadism to start dripping once more from his voice. Don't do anything you'll regret. One slice from my shadows and you can kiss the blood seal inside your son's armor goodbye. So do us all a favor and don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong.
Van Hohenheim didn't deign to respond. He merely lifted an eyebrow and then arcs of crimson lightning shot out of the earth beneath his feet, flying towards Kanama. Before the Homunculi could blink all the lights in the slums flickered out and the night was blacker than it ever was. Startled shouts rang from the distance, the people of Kanama not understanding what was happening.
No! Envy heard Pride howl in the almost total darkness.
"Yes," Van Hohenheim said. "I figured you out when we met before, Pride. Shadows, hm? You need light, then. Without it you are as powerless as the Dwarf was within his flask."
I still have enough to send the soul of your precious Alphonse into oblivion! Pride wheezed defiantly. We can find another candidate!
"You seem incapable of listening," Van Hohenheim sighed.
A rumble shook the earth as it swiftly traveled back towards the forest. The fading shadows inside the suit of armor suddenly cried out in alarm and simply vanished. With a hard, metallic thud, the empty armor crashed on the ground.
Envy heard trees falling down and turned to look at the woods, shifting a few bits inside their eyes, forcing their vision to go well beyond the human ability to see in darkness. A huge stone fist was jutting down from the earth just where Envy had had the misfortune to run into their oldest brother.
And in the clutches of this fist…
"I told you, Pride," Van Hohenheim walked towards it. "I know you. I understand you. You need a vessel. That's why you couldn't step beyond the boundaries of the circle in Liore. And that's why you had to travel here, on foot, with my son as your hostage."
Envy was staring at the little boy that was frustratedly struggling in the grip of the stone hand the Elrics' father had summoned.
They could almost laugh about it.
Selim fucking Bradley.
Of course. It was so obvious in hindsight that they felt like a idiot for not putting it together before. Just another of the Dwarf's secrets, not to be shared with the rest of the family. They were nothing but tools, and tools shouldn't reach beyond their purpose, after all.
"Gluttony!" Pride shrieked, his voice sounding thinner and not nearly as frightening as it had before. "Gluttony! Where are you? Eat them! Free me!"
Envy looked around.
Huh.
Gluttony had disappeared somewhere, probably desperately hurrying back towards Central and the lair. He seemed to fear Van Hohenheim more than Pride.
"They used me to create the one you call Father," Van Hohenheim told the seething Homunculus trapped inside the massive fist. "Did you really think that I cannot sense where you hid your vessel, Pride?"
"I'm gonna kill you, you human piece of excrement!" Pride shouted, enraged beyond belief.
"Yes, you said something in that spirit about my son, too," the tall blonde man had reached the fist and stood face to face with Pride in the dark. "I can tolerate a lot. But not that." The meaning behind his words was more than clear.
"WAIT!" Envy cried out, finally managing to stand up and hobble towards them. "Don't! We had a deal!"
Hohenheim's bearded jaw twitched in frustration as he turned to look at Envy. "I know, Envy. But we can't let him free. Not when the Promised Day is drawing near."
"D-dad? Envy?" Alphonse Elric's childish voice made them turn towards the place where the suit of armor had fallen. The Tin Can slowly got up, lightly shaking his helmet as he was trying to clear his head up. "What happened? I… I remember seeing Winry off and then…" His voice trailed off as he finally spotted the trapped Pride. "Oh…"
"Al?" Van Hohenheim's voice was immediately softened. "Are you alright?"
"I-I think so…" the boy answered hesitantly. "What are you going to do with him, dad?" He nodded towards Pride.
"I…"
"We had a deal!" Envy growled, punctuating each word as they stepped between Pride and Van Hohenheim. "So far I have fulfilled my end of it. You owe me the same, Hohenheim!" They declared, much more boldly than they felt.
Hohenheim looked down at Envy and held their gaze in his for what seemed like a long time. Then he sighed and stepped back.
"You have until the rest of them get here to try and break him out," he told them. "I hope you know what you're doing, Envy. Come on, Al. We have to go. We're already running out of time."
With that he turned and walked away from Pride and Envy.
As he did, the earth beneath them thundered and shook, and forks of red light danced and flickered all around. Envy's eyes widened as the ground was transmuted and rose, and rose around them, until the two Homunculi were trapped in a stony dome full of such impenetratable darkness that even their enhanced vision struggled to make anything out.
They heard, rather than saw, the fist that held Pride crumbling and the child-husk of his vessel hitting the ground.
"What have you done, you miserable monster?" Pride hissed.
Envy turned to him, despite the blackness and said, "We need to talk."
So... I'm back, I guess?
In the latest installment, which was submitted quite some time ago, I reached the point where I wasn't sure exactly WHERE I wanted to go and what I wanted to do with this story. I was playing with a few different options in my head, but I couldn't decide on which route was the best. Which, eventually gave me a bit of a burnout. Hence, the huuuge delay between chapters.
I managed to figure it out, though. I now know where I want to go with this, I have the ending pretty much planned out so hopefully this story is going to get finished smoothly and without much trouble.
Second Envy POV chapter in a row, set in the episode where Pride gets trapped with Al. Obviously things are a bit different here.
See ya next time, kids!